Haim Maor - Exhibition: forbidden library

The Forbidden Library

Installation, The Center for Contemporary Art, Hague, Holland.
Curator: Phillip Peter.

Death in life, Life in death

On an installation by Haim Maor

by Philip Peters, Curator

I

The Holocaust does not occur very often as a subject in the visual arts. Possibly it is too outspoken (too literal, too figurative' possibly there is a taboo on it. Oddly enough, this is also the case in Israel. As far as I know, Haim Maor is the only Israeli artist who has dealt wit the Holocaust as (his only) theme for years.
This also applies to the work presented by the HCAK in May 1993 under the title of 'Faces Of Race And Memory from the Forbidden Library'. Maor himself is an exponent of the so-called 'second generation'; the Holocaust touches him personally.
This was a narrative work, in eight parts, geared to the accommodation available in the HCAK at that moment. At that time the HCAK consisted -of seven rooms: the ground floor and upper floor were each divided into three small rooms. The back part was undivided. In addition, Maor used the small office downstairs as the actual exhibition area for the purpose of Introducing the installation. For this occasion, the upper floor has been closed off in the front, so that a fixed walking direction was created: first through the office to the back part by way of the three downstairs rooms, and from there uppstairs to the three to the three upper rooms.
Finally, the 'observer had to cover the entire route in reverse direction in order to get to the front door.
Although the work is unmistakably to a great extent, this does not imply that in only dealt with Haim Maor or even the Holocaust.
The step-up first moved towards the theme, as it were, and then away from it. At first, the visitor was an observer of tragedy gradually unfolding before his eyes, at the end of the installation he had turned into a participant.

II

Since the installation has disappeared and this publication can only illustrate part of the work, a brief description follows:
I. PROLOGUE In the office there were two flag-like canvases. One of them looked like a color-blindness test, in which a five-figure number was only just to be discerned. The other one was composed of camouflage spots where with some difficulty the text I AM A JEW was to be read. These canvases introduced the mysteriousness of the theme, the atmosphere of taboo and shame it is surrounded with.
2. FORBIDDEN WORDS In the first downstairs room there were a number of sheets of paper on which words in neutral characters had been printed. These come from various areas of meaning. A few examples: HAIR, SHOWER, CAMP. Together, they formed an associative field, offering itself for interpretation. The common denominator was that all the words used occur in the vocabulary related to extermination camps.
The sheets with words were complemented by comparable sheets with pictograms, to which the same applied.
3. FORBIDDEN STORIES The second room contained a number of larger sheets of paper with a number of texts printed on them, the origin of which was to divided in two: part of them comprised ~' impressions of a biography of Haim Maor and his parents, another part consisted of comparable texts on a young German woman, Sanna, with her family, who has been 'on the wrong side' during the war. All this is completed by a number of photographs 'emphasizing the duel background of the texts. The portraist of the two protagonists, Haim and Sanna, were introduced on this spot. The number from the Prologue also appeared again here, tattooed on an arm. In the center of the room there was a table with color photographs under a glass top, comparable to those hanging on the walls. On the table stood a kitsch statuette of Biedermeier origin.
4. FACES OF RACE On walls facing each other, a number of photographs hung in three rows: on one side men, on the other Women. One of the man was Haim, one of the women was Sanna. The identity of the others remained unknown. It was likely that we had to do with Jews and Germans here, though it was not explicity stated witch group was where. Because of the division into men and woman, it could in all probability be supposed that both groups mixed, a first and significant indication of the eventual meaning of the work as a whole.
5. MORTUARY In the dimly lit back room twelve open coffines had been placed, part of them in rows, part of them half overlapping each other. The twelve lids hung on the walls portraits had been painted on them, to be compared to those in the photographs in the preceding room. Sometimes, as in the case of Haim and Sanna, the same people had been portrayed. Besides, a comparable (but this time horizontal) wooden panel, which was not part of a coffin, hung on the back wall. The number (which by this time the visitor must have been able to identify as Auschwitz number) also figured here. In Poland Haim's grandfather used to earn his living by making tombstones.
6. DISQUALIFIED SCROLLS All the upstairs rooms were relatively dark. In the first room from top to bottom, hung six unfolded parchment scrolls. (Somewhat blurred) slided of the heads of Haim and Sanna were projected on them. Such scrolls are actually meant for writing down the' Torah (the Law); consequently, they had been 'desecrated' as it were 'through these projections.
7. LIGHT NUMBER In the second upstairs room the only light came from behind a copper plate hanging to the wall, in which the contours of the Auschwitz number had been left open. For the rest, the room was empty.
8. ECHO CHAMBER In the last room a small cubicle had been built, open to one side; the three other walls were convered with mirrors. In the center a chair had been placed, strongly resembling 'the electric chair'. The room was lit by one single bulb. Over the chair a black crow was hanging, many times larger than life-size. Those who sat down on the chair could see themseleves infinitely reflected right and left.
This was the 'end' of the route. From here the visitor had to cover all the stages once again in reverse order.

III

The narrative structure of this work has a fragmentary character. Something is told, but in associative images from various fields of meaning and making use of a diversity of materials. Moreover, one might speak of a 'story within a story' or a story with several layers of meaning reflecting one another. Three layers are to be distingushed. In the first place, there is the unfolding narrative of the. Holocaust. Interwoven with it is the biography to two protagonists of the next generation: an Israeli man and a German woman. Finally, there is the experience of the observer, who automatically takes part in the story, increasingly becomes an 'accomplice' as the story proceeds, until at the end he is confronted with his own mirror image. Whereas at the start of the installation he could still take up the position of the more or less detached observer getting something dished up, at the end whole work turns out to have been about him, too. He is no longer just an observer, but has become a person involved. No perpetrator without a victim, no victim without a perpetrator. The two are united in the mirror room in the person of the visitor who, after a kaleidoscopic survey of perpetrators and victims, is all of a sudden treated to his own portrait. It can therefore be said that eventually the Holocaust is not the subject of this work, but at most a cause. Essentially, it deals with man in general, with man without a mask, with what is left when the veneer of 'civilization' is removed, and with the duality present in all of us.

IV

This is definitely a moralistic work of art, possibly not the most popular attitude in this day and age, but it Is an attitude which is meaningful and in a sense necessary in a period of newly surfacing racism and hatred of foreigners. At this very moment the warning character of the work unfortunately once again has a message which is related to society and culture in a general sence, as well as to topical, questionable tendencies and our own stand with respect to them, a message aimed at each human being separately, who Is both potential perpetrator and potential victim. On the strength of this awareness choices have to be, made; that Is man's responsibility in life: Wir haben es gewusst.
This work of Haim Maor deals with the human condition, on the basis of one of the most drastic and large-scale manifestations of it in world history, but it. also hints at the possibility of transcending it: the Jew and the German women, Haim and Sanna, are friends regardless of their respective family histories. Just so, the perpetrator and the victim in ourselves should also try to come to terms: then (and only then) history will not repeat itself anymore.
V

The Jewish culture is primarily a culture of words (and a culture of continuous commentary on words). This can particularly be traced back to the abundant quantity of texts, notably in the first passages of the work. In this connection it should be noted that a great deal has been lost in the English translation: Hebrew offers infinite possibilities for ambiguity, for three or even more layers of meaning, which are not to be expressed in another language.
The development of the work is from word to image or from word developing into image.
It is also a development from light to dark, and from object (the Holocaust) to subject (the observer), as well as, in reverse, from words and numbers to concrete objects with a metaphorical tension and from vague, verbal and visual allusions, by way of a variety of data, to oppressive clarity in a strongly economized design.
On the other hand, it is just as arguable to say that the work Is composed of a large number of sudden changes in style, that each stanza (each small roam) presents a design a entirely of its own, in other words: the work as a whole has been structured as a narrative, It is true, but the components of the narrative are no more than just fragments, like archaeological discoveries: their mutual relationship Is still to be found, the narrative will have to be filled in by the observer.
The leitmotif In the narrative can be construed on the basis of the recurring data: the Auschwitz number, the portrains of the protagonists as exemplary for 'all people', for 'man' in general. The number recurs in a variety of contexts and roles: first quasi neutral, as a series of figures, then as a tattoo on an arm, and consequently an Auschwitz number, and finally as luminous signal in an arrangement strongly verging on the sacral, almost as an image of devotion. But it is not an image devoted to the position of being a victim, as Is indicated by the subsequent and last room, the mirror room, where, after all, the observer meets himself as a potential perpetrator.
VI

The development from text to image and at the same time from light to dark is also to be interpreted as a transition from a consciously observing level to the realm of the participating unconscious. In a sense, it could be maintained that the nature of the communication does not essentially change and is already completely put forward in the prologue', subsequently returning in all sorts of varying forms. The difference then lies in the character of the formulation, which has been geared to the changing reactions of the observer: at first his reaction is cerebral, detached and combining, then associative, involved and introverted. The downstairs rooms are the domain of logic, deduction, ratio (the 'light part' of the brain, as it is put in Hebrew) and are therefore bathed in fluorescent light, In the upper rooms Irrationality Is predominant, metaphysics, experience (the 'dark part' of the brain) which is the reason why it is dark upstairs. Thinking man's control over obscure, unconscious process is disappearing in the course of the installation and the work leads the observer towards insight Into himself within the context of the historical parallel. It is true, the last stages of the work take place in relative darkness, on the other hand the materials used there are materials of light: a luminous object, projection reflection. In this way, there is light in darkness and at the same time darkness in light: the classical Romantic theme of 'Life in Death, Death in Life'. Moreover the development is a development from past to present: from remembrance of the Holocaust to awareness of the present moment.

VII

Once the end of the installation has been reached, the visitor will have to walk the same way back again in reverse direction, in order to get to the front door again. But the person who is faced with the starting point of this route back is no longer the same person as the one who entered the exhibition. Then he still had an open mind about the work and he started his walk as more or less detached observer. However, at the starting point of his return route he has undergone the experience of the work. The movements is now away from the here and now. Or rather: the here and now is experienced as a consequence of the past, of history.
A step can only be taken if a step has preceded it. The here and now in itself has no meaning, just as the life of a person without memory consists of a sequence of futile incidents.
If this installation of Haim Maor really 'teaches' us anything, it is: historical awareness. The visitor leaves the Installation in the awareness of his historical dimension.

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	The Forbidden Library Installation, The Center for Contemporary Art, Hague, Holland. Curator: Phillip Peter.




	Death in life, Life in death On an installation by Haim Maor by Philip Peters, Curator I The Holocaust does not occur very often as a subject in the visual arts. Possibly it is too outspoken (too literal, too figurative' possibly there is a taboo on it. Oddly enough, this is also the case in Israel. As far as I know, Haim Maor is the only Israeli artist who has dealt wit the Holocaust as (his only) theme for years. This also applies to the work presented by the HCAK in May 1993 under the title of 'Faces Of Race And Memory from the Forbidden Library'. Maor himself is an exponent of the so-called 'second generation'; the Holocaust touches him personally. This was a narrative work, in eight parts, geared to the accommodation available in the HCAK at that moment. At that time the HCAK consisted -of seven rooms: the ground floor and upper floor were each divided into three small rooms. The back part was undivided. In addition, Maor used the small office downstairs as the actual exhibition area for the purpose of Introducing the installation. For this occasion, the upper floor has been closed off in the front, so that a fixed walking direction was created: first through the office to the back part by way of the three downstairs rooms, and from there uppstairs to the three to the three upper rooms. Finally, the 'observer had to cover the entire route in reverse direction in order to get to the front door. Although the work is unmistakably to a great extent, this does not imply that in only dealt with Haim Maor or even the Holocaust. The step-up first moved towards the theme, as it were, and then away from it. At first, the visitor was an observer of tragedy gradually unfolding before his eyes, at the end of the installation he had turned into a participant. II Since the installation has disappeared and this publication can only illustrate part of the work, a brief description follows: I. PROLOGUE In the office there were two flag-like canvases. One of them looked like a color-blindness test, in which a five-figure number was only just to be discerned. The other one was composed of camouflage spots where with some difficulty the text I AM A JEW was to be read. These canvases introduced the mysteriousness of the theme, the atmosphere of taboo and shame it is surrounded with. 2. FORBIDDEN WORDS In the first downstairs room there were a number of sheets of paper on which words in neutral characters had been printed. These come from various areas of meaning. A few examples: HAIR, SHOWER, CAMP. Together, they formed an associative field, offering itself for interpretation. The common denominator was that all the words used occur in the vocabulary related to extermination camps. The sheets with words were complemented by comparable sheets with pictograms, to which the same applied. 3. FORBIDDEN STORIES The second room contained a number of larger sheets of paper with a number of texts printed on them, the origin of which was to divided in two: part of them comprised ~' impressions of a biography of Haim Maor and his parents, another part consisted of comparable texts on a young German woman, Sanna, with her family, who has been 'on the wrong side' during the war. All this is completed by a number of photographs 'emphasizing the duel background of the texts. The portraist of the two protagonists, Haim and Sanna, were introduced on this spot. The number from the Prologue also appeared again here, tattooed on an arm. In the center of the room there was a table with color photographs under a glass top, comparable to those hanging on the walls. On the table stood a kitsch statuette of Biedermeier origin. 4. FACES OF RACE On walls facing each other, a number of photographs hung in three rows: on one side men, on the other Women. One of the man was Haim, one of the women was Sanna. The identity of the others remained unknown. It was likely that we had to do with Jews and Germans here, though it was not explicity stated witch group was where. Because of the division into men and woman, it could in all probability be supposed that both groups mixed, a first and significant indication of the eventual meaning of the work as a whole. 5. MORTUARY In the dimly lit back room twelve open coffines had been placed, part of them in rows, part of them half overlapping each other. The twelve lids hung on the walls portraits had been painted on them, to be compared to those in the photographs in the preceding room. Sometimes, as in the case of Haim and Sanna, the same people had been portrayed. Besides, a comparable (but this time horizontal) wooden panel, which was not part of a coffin, hung on the back wall. The number (which by this time the visitor must have been able to identify as Auschwitz number) also figured here. In Poland Haim's grandfather used to earn his living by making tombstones. 6. DISQUALIFIED SCROLLS All the upstairs rooms were relatively dark. In the first room from top to bottom, hung six unfolded parchment scrolls. (Somewhat blurred) slided of the heads of Haim and Sanna were projected on them. Such scrolls are actually meant for writing down the' Torah (the Law); consequently, they had been 'desecrated' as it were 'through these projections. 7. LIGHT NUMBER In the second upstairs room the only light came from behind a copper plate hanging to the wall, in which the contours of the Auschwitz number had been left open. For the rest, the room was empty. 8. ECHO CHAMBER In the last room a small cubicle had been built, open to one side; the three other walls were convered with mirrors. In the center a chair had been placed, strongly resembling 'the electric chair'. The room was lit by one single bulb. Over the chair a black crow was hanging, many times larger than life-size. Those who sat down on the chair could see themseleves infinitely reflected right and left. This was the 'end' of the route. From here the visitor had to cover all the stages once again in reverse order. III The narrative structure of this work has a fragmentary character. Something is told, but in associative images from various fields of meaning and making use of a diversity of materials. Moreover, one might speak of a 'story within a story' or a story with several layers of meaning reflecting one another. Three layers are to be distingushed. In the first place, there is the unfolding narrative of the. Holocaust. Interwoven with it is the biography to two protagonists of the next generation: an Israeli man and a German woman. Finally, there is the experience of the observer, who automatically takes part in the story, increasingly becomes an 'accomplice' as the story proceeds, until at the end he is confronted with his own mirror image. Whereas at the start of the installation he could still take up the position of the more or less detached observer getting something dished up, at the end whole work turns out to have been about him, too. He is no longer just an observer, but has become a person involved. No perpetrator without a victim, no victim without a perpetrator. The two are united in the mirror room in the person of the visitor who, after a kaleidoscopic survey of perpetrators and victims, is all of a sudden treated to his own portrait. It can therefore be said that eventually the Holocaust is not the subject of this work, but at most a cause. Essentially, it deals with man in general, with man without a mask, with what is left when the veneer of 'civilization' is removed, and with the duality present in all of us. IV This is definitely a moralistic work of art, possibly not the most popular attitude in this day and age, but it Is an attitude which is meaningful and in a sense necessary in a period of newly surfacing racism and hatred of foreigners. At this very moment the warning character of the work unfortunately once again has a message which is related to society and culture in a general sence, as well as to topical, questionable tendencies and our own stand with respect to them, a message aimed at each human being separately, who Is both potential perpetrator and potential victim. On the strength of this awareness choices have to be, made; that Is man's responsibility in life: Wir haben es gewusst. This work of Haim Maor deals with the human condition, on the basis of one of the most drastic and large-scale manifestations of it in world history, but it. also hints at the possibility of transcending it: the Jew and the German women, Haim and Sanna, are friends regardless of their respective family histories. Just so, the perpetrator and the victim in ourselves should also try to come to terms: then (and only then) history will not repeat itself anymore. V The Jewish culture is primarily a culture of words (and a culture of continuous commentary on words). This can particularly be traced back to the abundant quantity of texts, notably in the first passages of the work. In this connection it should be noted that a great deal has been lost in the English translation: Hebrew offers infinite possibilities for ambiguity, for three or even more layers of meaning, which are not to be expressed in another language. The development of the work is from word to image or from word developing into image. It is also a development from light to dark, and from object (the Holocaust) to subject (the observer), as well as, in reverse, from words and numbers to concrete objects with a metaphorical tension and from vague, verbal and visual allusions, by way of a variety of data, to oppressive clarity in a strongly economized design. On the other hand, it is just as arguable to say that the work Is composed of a large number of sudden changes in style, that each stanza (each small roam) presents a design a entirely of its own, in other words: the work as a whole has been structured as a narrative, It is true, but the components of the narrative are no more than just fragments, like archaeological discoveries: their mutual relationship Is still to be found, the narrative will have to be filled in by the observer. The leitmotif In the narrative can be construed on the basis of the recurring data: the Auschwitz number, the portrains of the protagonists as exemplary for 'all people', for 'man' in general. The number recurs in a variety of contexts and roles: first quasi neutral, as a series of figures, then as a tattoo on an arm, and consequently an Auschwitz number, and finally as luminous signal in an arrangement strongly verging on the sacral, almost as an image of devotion. But it is not an image devoted to the position of being a victim, as Is indicated by the subsequent and last room, the mirror room, where, after all, the observer meets himself as a potential perpetrator. VI The development from text to image and at the same time from light to dark is also to be interpreted as a transition from a consciously observing level to the realm of the participating unconscious. In a sense, it could be maintained that the nature of the communication does not essentially change and is already completely put forward in the prologue', subsequently returning in all sorts of varying forms. The difference then lies in the character of the formulation, which has been geared to the changing reactions of the observer: at first his reaction is cerebral, detached and combining, then associative, involved and introverted. The downstairs rooms are the domain of logic, deduction, ratio (the 'light part' of the brain, as it is put in Hebrew) and are therefore bathed in fluorescent light, In the upper rooms Irrationality Is predominant, metaphysics, experience (the 'dark part' of the brain) which is the reason why it is dark upstairs. Thinking man's control over obscure, unconscious process is disappearing in the course of the installation and the work leads the observer towards insight Into himself within the context of the historical parallel. It is true, the last stages of the work take place in relative darkness, on the other hand the materials used there are materials of light: a luminous object, projection reflection. In this way, there is light in darkness and at the same time darkness in light: the classical Romantic theme of 'Life in Death, Death in Life'. Moreover the development is a development from past to present: from remembrance of the Holocaust to awareness of the present moment. VII Once the end of the installation has been reached, the visitor will have to walk the same way back again in reverse direction, in order to get to the front door again. But the person who is faced with the starting point of this route back is no longer the same person as the one who entered the exhibition. Then he still had an open mind about the work and he started his walk as more or less detached observer. However, at the starting point of his return route he has undergone the experience of the work. The movements is now away from the here and now. Or rather: the here and now is experienced as a consequence of the past, of history. A step can only be taken if a step has preceded it. The here and now in itself has no meaning, just as the life of a person without memory consists of a sequence of futile incidents. If this installation of Haim Maor really 'teaches' us anything, it is: historical awareness. The visitor leaves the Installation in the awareness of his historical dimension.